Helpful articles to improve your own nature and landscape photography explorations. You will also see stunning landscape and nature photographs created by award winning landscape and nature photographer Melissa Fague.

Tag Archives: Delaware

Leading Me Into The Light is a high contrast colorized landscape photograph of the historic Brandywine Train tracks that once carried thousands of people to the Brandywine Spring Resort every year. Today, the Western Railroad Stream train uses the tracks for tours.

Autumn Reflections is a landscape photograph created on a little pond near Clayton Delaware to capture the stunning details in color of the autumn leaves and the heavy rolling clouds over the pond. When I arrived on the site, I instantly fell in love with the bold colors of the leaves on the trees across the pond, the stillness of the water, and the heavy clouds rolling in the sky. As I studied the scene, I notice how the clouds and the colors reflected off of the calm waters. The clouds, both in the sky and reflected, created these leading lines that kept drawing my attention back to the colorful autumn tree line.

Lost in Autumn Color is a landscape photograph of a cluster of trees in the center of a still pond in full autumn color. The image was created to capture the beautiful natural framing of the foreground trees that have not changed in color yet while showcasing the beautiful array of fall color in the center of the pond.

There are many options to landscape photographers when it come to photographing water. If there is a river, creek, or stream that flows through the landscape scene you are about to photograph, think about the characteristic of it and how you should convey those characters in the final photograph. A large, slow moving river has a completely different look and feel than a fast moving mountain stream with rocks and boulders. The characteristics of the water can be the point of interest in the photograph or it can serve as a complimentary element in your composition by using it as a leading line, as a horizontal line, or as a shape simply by moving around the scene during the photo shoot.

While on the location look carefully for any reflections on the surface of the water too. You have the option for the reflections to enhance the landscape photo. For instance, the colored reflections of bright autumn leaves can sometimes enhance the landscape photos. Or you may find that the reflections on the surface of the water takes away from the landscape scene, if this is the case you can reduce the glare and reflections by using a polarizing filter. If you don’t have a filter, moving around the scene could help you with the options to include the reflections or eliminate the as well. Worst case scenario, you return to the location when the sun is at a different angle to the water.

Wall art prints and licensing options for both landscape photographs are available through our online store PI Photography and Fine Art

A landscape photograph of the Reedy Point Rear Range (Lighthouse) against a clear winter blue sky right before the sun set. The Reedy Point Rear Range is located on Taylor’s Bridge Rd in Townsend, Delaware.

The Reedy Island Rear Range is one of several range lights that were built as part of a channel dredging project in the early 1900s along the Delaware River. The channel was built heading north from the Atlantic Ocean towards Philadelphia Pennsylvania; the channel is made a series of turns which lies close to the Delaware shore off Port Penn. All along the channel (the Delaware River) between the turns and the sediment navigation up and down the channel was a challenge in the early years. The Delaware River was one of the first locations in the US which employed the use of steel in the lighthouse and range construction. Because of the soft coastline along the Delaware shores permanent lighthouses could not withstand erosion and every time the channel was dredged the lighthouses would have to be moved. The use of steel allowed the engineers to move the structures fairly easily (in comparison to a wooden or concrete structure).

There was once a keeper’s house and shed that stood near the tower all of which were built in 1906 with funds from the original appropriation for the range. Eventually the light was automated and a keeper was no longer needed on the property so the house fell into disarray. The light station is still in use today but the light keeper’s house was destroyed in a fire in 2002 and the shed has seen better days.